Great Detroit Sports Debates

By Drew Sharp and Terry Foster

Any sports fan knows that nothing brings on more passion and opinion than a good old-fashioned debate. Drew Sharp and Terry Foster are no different, as they take on the top debates of all time in Detroit sports.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sports Publishing
• Release date: Feb 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781613211243

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

TERRY ON DREW

I met Drew Sharp during my first week of working at the Detroit Free Press in 1982. He’d just graduated from the University of Michigan, and we became part of a young nucleus that emerged into some of the best sportswriters in America.

Johnette Howard (columnist at New York Newsday), Clifton Brown (The New York Times), and Tommy George (The New York Times and Denver Post) all left the Freep and worked in New York. Drew and I became columnists in our hometown. We became good friends, and that bond grew when we became Pistons beat writers at competing papers. I moved to The Detroit News in 1988, and we both covered the Pistons during the 1989-1990 championships.

Drew used to be mild mannered, but he grew into an agitated lion when he felt his turf was being invaded. This was never clearer than the time I knew he was my boy. We were on a tight deadline during a game at Chicago Stadium, and I was seconds from sending in my story when a Chicago radio reporter snatched my phone. I told the selfish scribe to give it back. He didn’t. So I snatched the wire from the back of the phone during his report. He threatened me, and I said as soon as I was off deadline we could finish this. Drew turned, cursed the guy out, and then threw a full cup of Coke and ice in his face.

Security was called.

Two days later, I called Drew’s hotel room in Milwaukee.

"Hey, ‘Boodini’, I think we are in trouble. Our fight made the Chicago Tribune."

The paper said the Pistons were not the only Bad Boys from Detroit. The paper called us The Bad Boy writers.

We have a lot in common. Drew was born in Ypsilanti, but we both grew up on the west side of Detroit, loved Detroit sports as kids, celebrated the 1968 Tigers’ World Series, and worked briefly at the Grand Rapids Press.

He is a graduate of Detroit Catholic Central (1978) and U-M (1982), but claims the university revoked his diploma because of his rips on the athletic program. And, by the way, he is also hated by Michigan State, the Big Ten, most Detroit sports fans, old ladies who sit in the bleachers, and most of society.

Whenever my radio partner Mike Valenti is on vacation, I ask Drew to fill in. I know we can disagree, argue, and not hold grudges.

I gave him his nickname Boodini, because Drew was wrong on everything. But during a one-month period he nailed everything. It was like magic. So I combined the names of the magician Hoodini with former Muhammad Ali trainer Drew Bundini Brown.

I am happy to see him spread his wings and do his thing in the newspaper and on ESPN. He’s worked hard. I always root for my homies. When I pitched this project to him, he enthusiastically got on board, and I am honored to do this book with him.

May sales be as brisk as your rips of the Big Ten, my friend.

DREW ON TERRY

If I had a dime for every time I was confused for Terry Foster or he was confused for me, I could live

a richly subsidized retirement comparable to that of a Lions’ first-round draft choice. The confusion is understandable, because our lives have closely paralleled each other.

We both were raised on Detroit’s west side, although I’ve long had difficulty finding the exact place where Terry lived. He has steadfastly maintained that he grew up in the house of respectability, but unfortunately, the white pages offer no such address.

What immediately struck me about Terry was his passion, a willingness to metaphorically incorporate sports within the inconsistencies and injustices of life. Some people frown upon that. Sports should remain separate from real life, but Terry has always understood that real people participate in sports, so why not draw parallels.

Passion is a necessary component for discussion. That’s why our collaboration for this debate book was inevitable.

Rarely have we agreed on anything during our numerous arguments over the years, discussing the merits or flaws of teams, players, and coaches over brews and Buffalo wings on the road after a game.

But our disagreements never required security guard intervention until a Pistons trip to San Antonio in January 1991.

The Lions were hosting the Dallas Cowboys in a NFC playoff game at the Silverdome. Terry believed the game symbolized a seismic course alteration for the long-suffering Lions, but I just categorized it as one of those unexplainable flukes like the occasional Democrat taking up residency in the White House.

As the Lions rolled on to a big victory over the Cowboys, our words morphed into other forms of whimsy—like a hotel room wrestling match.

Say it, ‘Boodini!’ Say it! Terry demanded with my head vise-locked in his arms. The Lions are a solid team! Say it!

Never! They still suck! I managed to mutter.

I’m not letting go until you say they’re solid!

Never!

A half hour later, we got a call from hotel security. The person in the room below wondered what the hell was going on overhead. Either we were to tone it down, or we risked expulsion from the Marriott Riverwalk. Or maybe they threatened to toss us into the Riverwalk.

It’s taken 15 years, but I think Terry finally realized that I was right all along about the Lions.

DREW

There’s a stronger connection to baseball in Detroit because there’s a deeper history. The Tigers have been here for 105 years now. They are one of the charter members of the American League. They weren’t born elsewhere and moved here like the city’s other professional sports franchises.

And don’t tell me about how Detroit might react to the Lions winning a Super Bowl.

We know how the city has reacted to tight pennant races in September and successful World Series runs in October.

Detroit exploded—in a positive way.

There’s a generational bond with baseball in this town that football can’t replicate. Terry, if it were possible, you and I could sit with our fathers and grandfathers today and each could share in what it was like getting a daily adrenaline fix from the Tigers’ world championship seasons of 1935, 1945, 1968, and 1984. Football reaches its climax on one day after a week of buildup, but nothing compares to the emotional ebb and flow of a stirring baseball season, because it could change daily.

And that’s why the Tigers’ fall from respectability has been more insulting personally than the Lions’ championship difficulties, because if you were born after October 1987, you would have graduated high school before seeing the Tigers return to the playoffs.

TERRY

I do not play or work for the Detroit Lions. But it is impossible for me to go to dinner without some poor schmuck walking up and saying: What’s wrong with the Lions? How can we fix this team?

This town is obsessed with the Lions even during this pathetic five-year 21-59 stench under president Matt Millen. The Lions dominate the airwaves, the sports talk shows, and the minds of the fans.

If the Lions ever won a Super Bowl, the parade route would stretch from Pontiac to downtown. And every inch of space would be filled with people even in the dead of winter. That is how much the Lions mean to people.

When the Lions win, lose, scratch, burp, or fall down, it becomes front-page news.

When the Tigers lose, nobody cares. When the Lions win, lose, scratch, burp, or fall down, it becomes front-page news. Ford Field is filled every Sunday with more than 60,000 fans who start out thinking this is the year the Lions finally make the Super Bowl and leave with blue and silver face paint smudged from tears.

And I didn’t even mention the 112,000 people who show up in Ann Arbor for Michigan football and the 72,000 who venture to East Lansing to see Michigan State play. The high school scene is popular, too. Football fields are filled every fall as people await annual battles between Grosse Pointe South and Grosse Point North.

People’s lives revolve around fall.

Michigan fans walk around with a sense of entitlement. Their lives rise and fall on the fortunes of the Wolverines. Paranoid Spartans fans carry around lucky rabbits’ feet hoping this is the year they finish better than 5-6 or 6-5. They complain about their teams constantly. But guess what? They are there every Saturday tailgating and cheering their teams on.

The Tigers lost an entire generation of fans. Ask anybody under 20 about the Detroit Tigers, and they will point toward the Detroit Zoo in Royal Oak. The biggest day in summer is Opening Day at Comerica Park, and it is all downhill for baseball from there.

The second biggest day is the opening of Lions’ training camp. After that folks only think football because by then the Tigers are an afterthought in the American League.

DREW

As pathetic as Lions management remains and as determined as they are in magnifying mistake upon mistake, the Lions are still more likely to get to the Super Bowl before the Tigers get back to the World Series because the NFL system is manipulated toward parity. The vast financial disparity in Major League Baseball still has significant influence in determining the better teams, placing even more pressure on the front offices of the lower revenue franchises. They have a much smaller margin for error in baseball than is the case in the salary cap-driven NFL.

The odds are better for the Lions because the chances of making the playoffs are greater. Teams with 8-8 records have made the NFL playoffs five times since 1999. The lowest winning percentage for any baseball playoff team during that same period was the San Diego Padres in 2005, winning the National League West Division with an 82-80 record.

Consider the last 10 Super Bowls and World Series as of the fall of 2005: There have been 14 different teams participating in the Super Bowl, including six teams that got there for the first time. There have been 13 different teams participating in the World Series during that time span, but one team—the New York Yankees—participated in six Fall Classics. And it isn’t a coincidence that the Yankees have consistently had the highest payroll in baseball during that period.

You can’t dismiss the realities that money is equal in the NFL. Yeah, it’s blatant socialism in that the bigger cities and media markets are no better financially than the smallest—little Green Bay, Wisconsin, and its population of just more than 120,000. But the NFL understood that the key to everybody flourishing is fostering a sense of optimism in every city that their team just might have a chance to win it all, if a few things fall the right way.

And I suppose that’s even possible with the Lions. Not likely— only possible.

But that beats the mess that’s become the Tigers.

TERRY

Normally I would agree with Drew that the Lions have a better chance than the Tigers. But with the divisional format the Tigers do not have to worry about beating the large payrolls of the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox until the playoffs. The Tigers could get swept by both teams the entire year, still make the playoffs, and win the World Series.

The Tigers must only beat the Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians, Minnesota Twins, and Kansas City Royals. That’s it.

The great thing is all of these teams must maintain moderate spending levels. They are not going to compete with the Yankees and Red Sox in spending.

But who won the World Series last year?

It was the White Sox. And haven’t we seen the Arizona Diamondbacks (2001), California Angels (2002), and Florida Marlins (1997, 2001) win World Series in recent years?

The Lions are run by Matt Millen, a guy who has ruined this franchise. They won’t win a thing as long as he is in charge. Heck, they may not even reach .500 under Millen.

Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski at least has a track record. He can go into a room full of front-office executives and not hear snickers. Millen cannot say the same. Dombrowski put the 1997 Florida Marlins together and is well respected in the baseball world. He loves power pitching and understands that that is the way you get to the playoffs and the World Series.

The Lions are still trying to figure out how to hire a head coach and draft a quality quarterback. You can talk about NFL parity. But if you do not have a good coach and quarterback, you are not winning a title.

Consider this fact. Since 1968 the Tigers have won two World Series. The Lions have won one playoff game since 1957.

Now if the Tigers win their division, anything can happen in a playoff series. The best team does not always win in baseball because all you need are two quality pitchers and timely hitting to win a series. The best teams usually win playoff series in basketball and football. Baseball truly is a sport when one team can win on any given day.

That is why the Tigers will be the next team from Losers Lane to win a championship.

DREW

The title of captain carries a lot of weight in a blue-collar town like Detroit. And what best defines the blue-collar mentality is toughness.

Mateen Cleaves and Antonio Smith were the first of the Flintstones, Michigan States basketball pipeline connecting Flint to East Lansing. They were co-captains during the 1999 season when the Spartans took their first steps to becoming a nationally elite basketball program, earning the first of four Final Four trips in a seven-year span, including the national championship in 2000.

Cleaves and Smith, who both came from Flint Northern High School, were the ultimate captains—good players who demanded great things.

Smith was Izzo’s first recruit, a power forward with vise-grip hands. He wasn’t the best jumper or the biggest player. He just wanted the ball more.

Smith took charge as a freshman, immediately following a tough loss at Purdue. The Spartans’ captain that year, senior Jon Garavaglia, had laughed off another road defeat. Outraged, Smith grabbed Garavaglia, dragged him into the showers, slammed him up against the wall, and yelled at him, I didn’t come here to lose!

The message was clear. A new day had arrived for Michigan State basketball.

Could two college kids (Mateen Cleaves, pictured, and Antonio Smith) be the captains of Detroit sports?

Izzo likes guys who play football because he believes they possess a greater emotional reserve than other athletes. Given the right circumstances, they can draw upon that resource. Smith was a high school tight end. Cleaves was an All-State quarterback in high school.

The right circumstance for Cleaves was halftime of the 2000 NCAA Tournament Midwest Regional semifinals at The Palace of Auburn Hills. The No. 1-seeded and heavily favored Spartans trailed Syracuse by 14 points. They played undisciplined and uninspired— especially Cleaves’s childhood friend, forward Morris Peterson.

Cleaves chewed out his good friend in the locker room, challenging his toughness.

Peterson came out on fire in the second half, scoring 16 of his 21 points, as the Spartans won, scoring 17 unanswered points over the game’s final six minutes.

When asked afterward what triggered that performance, Peterson said he didn’t want Cleaves kicking his butt had they lost.

TERRY

Drew!! You picked two kids as the ultimate team captains in Detroit sports? You had your choice of Steve Yzerman, Ben Wallace, Gordie Howe, and Alan Trammell, and you went with a pair of college students?

Who was your second choice? The captain of the Regina High School powder puff team?

Now here is the real team captain of Detroit sports.

In spring 1990, the defending NBA champions were in a slump. Team captain Isiah Thomas thought his front line was playing soft, and he wanted more fire.

The day after one of those losses, I entered the team’s dressing room to find a lone figure in front of his dressing stall. Thomas sat with his feet soaking in ice water as a million demons swam through his head. When I approached him, Thomas ripped into the play of James Edwards, John Salley, and Bill Laimbeer. He demanded more